The Work/Leisure Paradox

It is a chronic wish--to work less and play more. People wish they had more free time to enjoy life. The irony is these people have it wrong. The reality is that they enjoy work more than they care to admit while they enjoy leisure far less. This is the finding of author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.

Happiness comes from "flow" which is that experience you feel when you are deeply engrossed in an activity. Despite cultural attitudes denigrating work and praising leisure, studies indicate that people experience much greater flow from their work than they do from their leisure. Essentially, you will feel better being at work than you will sitting at home watching television.

There are exceptions to this paradox. Surfing produces more flow than being a night watchman. But generally speaking, your peak experiences will be had while on the job. So, why do people claim to hate working so damn much?

The best answer we can give to this question is that it is cultural. It is learned. In school, you have class and recess. There is spring break and summer vacation and Christmas holidays. Then, there are those religious traditions that treat work as a curse for sin. Then, there is the marketing we see in the media encouraging us to take up the good life which almost always involves the beach or the mountains and buying a bunch of stuff that will collect dust. We are taught to hate work as drudgery and to prize leisure as being pleasurable. The reality is that work is engaging while leisure is boring.

Not all leisure activities are boring. The ones that are pleasurable resemble work. These would be woodworking, gardening, cooking, etc. Then there are activities that promote health and fitness such as running, swimming, weight lifting, cycling, etc. These activities fill the void left with the decline of manual labor. People used to get paid to work out. Now, they pay to work out. But for the most part, leisure is comprised mostly of watching television and goofing off on the internet.

Work is where it is at. I've known this for a long time now. A bad day at work is better than a good day fishing. I've done the leisure thing, and it is very unsatisfying. I hate vacations, and I don't take them. I have no desire to retire but plan to work until I drop. This is seen as crazy and nutty, but I know the reality of the work/leisure paradox. We hate work for no good reason. Work is life, and it is the most consistently enjoyable aspect of life. Leisure time on the other hand is just a big void that people fill with mind numbing entertainment or other forms of work.

The antithesis of flow is boredom, and when you are working your ass off, you are seldom bored. You have something to do, and you feel accomplishment when it is done. Plus, they pay you for it. Surfing is fun, too, but very few people get paid to do it. Most surf bums work just enough and live hand to mouth to achieve flow. Rock climbers do the same thing. What they don't realize is that linemen working on electrical wires and riggers working on tall towers experience the stoke just as much as the surfers and the climbers. The only difference is that one lifestyle is glorified while the other is not.

The most radical lifestyle you can adopt today is not to be a surf bum but to be an unapologetic workaholic. You hear all sorts of griping about how this workaholism is "unbalanced" and "unhealthy." In places like France, they actually take measures to limit how much you can work with a maximum 35 hour workweek enforced. Here in the USA, we have overtime pay and the like to discourage working longer hours. I find this to be ludicrous.

The easiest way to find sustainable happiness is to change your attitude towards work. Work brings happiness. Leisure brings boredom. We hate what we love and love what we hate. It is an irony and a paradox, but it is easily remedied. Change your thinking. Love your work.

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